Goverment to Only Do Business With Honest Contractors — Military-Industrial Complex Faces Doom

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

This is an amazingly brilliant if impractical idea given the level of corruption in military and doubtless civilian procurement (sort of super-debarment for those versed in procurement law), but we all know it will never survive the legislative sausage factory.

4 Responses to Goverment to Only Do Business With Honest Contractors — Military-Industrial Complex Faces Doom

Honesty in contracting: should be good! The Office of Fair Trading has just given some small fines to the main construction companies in the UK for fixing bids for local governments. No one has been barred from bidding in future, just told to be good boys. Rather like the Renault Formula One racing team.

Ha well I suppose we can expect more asterisks in the future. Reminds me, I need to head over there and read your bro. Huff was blocked for awhile, and I never got in the habit of checking it out regularly.

Goodbye, Boeing (unethical contracting officer on tanker procurement), goodbye, Lockheed (cost overruns on F-22 and F-35), so long, John Murtha (too many to mention here). Maybe they should make the Defense Contract Audit Agency independent of the Pentagon (has been proposed this week). Also, doublecheck the resumes of everybody who works in procurement (lots of possibilities there).